Get the type of a variable in MySQL

Question

If I define a variable like set @a = "1";. How can I see that @a is a string?

Answer 1

You CAN determine the type of a variable in MySQL. Create a table by selecting your variable and then check the column type:

set @a:="1"; -- your variable

drop temporary table if exists foo;
create temporary table foo select @a; -- dirty magic
desc foo;
+-------+----------+------+-----+---------+-------+
| Field | Type     | Null | Key | Default | Extra |
+-------+----------+------+-----+---------+-------+
| @a    | longtext | YES  |     | NULL    |       |
+-------+----------+------+-----+---------+-------+